Sir Dave Richards has denied accusations that he bullied his fellow Football Association board members and blocked reform. Appearing before a parliamentary select committee on football's governance, the Premier League chairman said he was "really hurt" by claims from the former FA chairman Lord Triesman that he was "extremely aggressive".

"I have never bullied anybody, it is a fair and democratic vote," Richards said. "To think the Premier League chairman could block nine others is ridiculous. Lord Triesman's comments really saddened me and made me feel a little bit dejected."

The former Sheffield Wednesday chairman, who has held the same position at the Premier League since 1999, said he thought he was "reasonably close to Lord T". In his appearance before the committee Triesman said: "My experience is he will put his point politely in board meetings but discussions outside are extremely aggressive discussions, really aggressive discussions, points are made in a very colourful way. I wouldn't use that language."

Richards and the Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, also challenged Triesman's account of the process that led to the FA deferring to the Premier League and the Football League in answering key questions about football's future set by the government of the day. Triesman claimed that Richards and the other Premier League representatives on the board acted as a brake on any meaningful reform, a view backed up by the former chief executive Ian Watmore when he quit in frustration.

But Richards and Scudamore argued that 80% of the proposals contained in Triesman's document, which was knocked back by the full FA board amid claims that he had failed to consult properly, had been enacted in any case.

Triesman said that although the issue was raised at a meeting with the England manager to discuss his ill-fated Capello Index online venture, he had been forced to quit the FA before any detailed discussions took place. "It had been pre-agreed with the chairman," claimed Richards of the break clause's removal, who added that Triesman agreed to remove the break clause at the Capello Index meeting. "Unfortunately I had to pick up the pieces from that and had to bear the brunt of the blame."

Questioned on whether the Premier League would accept a new financial licensing regime, overseen by the FA, Scudamore said he was open to discussion but believed its new regulations and Uefa's licensing procedures were largely sufficient. He said 19 of the 20 Premier League clubs had applied for Uefa licences and would be subject to its financial fair play regulations from next season. Blackpool are believed to be the only club not to have applied for a Uefa licence.

"Our rulebook is effectively a licensing system for clubs within our league. I go back to our 814 rules, that is a contract with our clubs. Then we have got Uefa licensing ... this year 19 of our 20 clubs applied for a Uefa licence. You have the law of the land, you have our own rulebook, you have the FA rulebook and you have Uefa licensing."

The committee is believed to be considering an enhanced licensing system that would be standardised across the Premier League and the Football League and overseen by the FA.

On the perennial question of the introduction of a winter break and whether it would help the England team, Richards said it was "discussing ways forward how we can introduce a winter break". But Scudamore said the increase in the number of international matches mandated by Fifa and the number of match days required by Uefa would make it difficult. "We have to look to our friends at Uefa and Fifa," he said. "Somebody has to give something up."

"Uefa used to have 13 match days, now they want 21. Fifa used to have nine or 10 international dates and now it is averaging 12. Somebody has to give something up," he said. "If we had 18 teams [instead of 20] it would mean going from 380 events to 306 and there is no way we would do that in terms of public interest and fan interest."